


Mighty Small Things

by sugartrash



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Bees, Gen, Insects
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-30
Updated: 2015-04-30
Packaged: 2018-03-26 11:54:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3850039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sugartrash/pseuds/sugartrash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cullen keeps disregarding Sera's offer to contribute to the Inquisition. She makes some very tiny friends to make a very important point. </p><p>Inspired by this: <a href="http://trashrunway.tumblr.com/post/117715643257/jedavu-beautiful-winged-insects-made-of">Winged insects made of discarded circuit boards</a> (<a href="http://trashrunway.tumblr.com">trashrunway</a> is my "fandom aesthetic" board).</p><hr/>
            </blockquote>





	Mighty Small Things

Something buzzed past Cullen's ear and he swatted at it irritably before he remembered that up here in Skyhold there were no insects. The flying fortress was eerily sterile. He stopped working, turned down the glow of the war table, and scanned the room.

There it was. Glitter in the shadows. One sparkle, then two, then more, like snowflakes or grains of sand whipped by the wind. He was still trying to understand them when they swarmed him. His first instinct was panic, his second was to draw his blade as though it could do any good. It cut the air but the shining cloud only split and reformed around him.

After a moment, he realized that they weren't hurting him and he made himself stand still. For a few heartbeats, he was encased in a racing, humming pillar of tiny, shining wings. Then, as quickly as they had come, they were gone back into the shadows of the room.

"And you said it was a shitty idea. Nobhead." Sera stepped into the light of the war table, tapping it to brighten the room even though she knew damn well she shouldn't touch it, nor should she be able to activate it at all. Cullen was going to have to change the biometrics on it. "What good's a bee, even if it's a bot? We can't waste our time and resources on pet projects, Sera." She mimicked his voice and Cullen had to wonder if he really sounded that pedantic or if she were simply hearing him wrong.

"I'm willing to reconsider my initial stance," Cullen said carefully. The shimmering insect-bots clung to her hair and her ragged clothing--how many times had he told someone to get her a proper uniform? For the moment, they were still but now that he saw them his mind raced with how much damage they could do in the ductwork and wiring, or if they carried toxins or recording devices. "But we are short on resources, Sera. I don't know where you found the--"

"Garbage." Sera stuck her tongue out at him. A plastic and steel butterfly fluttered on the tip of one of her pointed ears.

"I can show you the figures, Sera. It's not garbage." She never believed a damn thing he said.

"No, I mean I got them from the garbage." Sera stepped up onto the war table and Cullen bit back admonishments about how expensive the device was and how fragile the components were. "Didn't cost you a damn thing, your Commanderness. Some of us know how to make do instead of whining about the bills." She crouched in front of him so that he could see the bots up close.

Bees, she liked bees, Cullen thought. He counted dozens of them. And the butterfly was lovely but there was just the one of those. The rest looked like moths and lightning bugs and wasps and mosquitoes or hybrids of the same.

"You rich prats throw out more than you know, and that's okay, because that's how the rest of us survive. You're lucky I'm showing you this." She blew softly across the creatures in her hands and their wings vibrated with her breath. "Only did it because I got tired of you saying I'm wrong about anything I have to say. You don't deserve 'em."

"I apologise." Cullen got the words out with a little effort. "I shouldn't have discounted your offer to contribute. It's excellent work."

"I know it is. I can do more." Sera settled cross-legged on the table, glaring up at him with narrowed eyes. "If you'd bloody well let me. I'm not going to break your precious Inquisition. You think I don't take anything seriously because I don't take your stupid rules and airs and graces seriously. I take things seriously, Rutherford. Things that matter. And screw the rest. You used to be little people once, yourself. Small and nothing, taking orders, trying to keep up, even when you were grown. Now you got yourself a title and a suit of armour and you think I'm nothing, too. I'd have been your friend back then, you know."

"I don't think you're nothing, Sera." Cullen extended a cautious finger and one of the golden and black bees, delicate wire antennae waving, crawled onto it. "I apologize if that's how I act toward you."

"You act like that because you believed them. You believed them when they said you were nothing because you didn't have what it took to hurt them all on your own." Sera hummed under her breath and the bee abandoned Cullen to return to her hands. "That's why I showed you. You were wrong. They were wrong. You weren't nothing. You were just small. I'm small. My friends are small. But there are a lot of us. Even if we're garbage, all it takes is someone to see us differently, give us a direction. And then..." The swarm took off all at once, forming into a seething, shining cloud that radiated rage and menace. "No one can tell us we're nothing anymore."


End file.
